


The Cobalt Archives

by bobbiesquares



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiesquares/pseuds/bobbiesquares
Summary: Statements of various Avatars, recorded by Beauregard Lionett, Head Archivist of the Cobalt Institute. AKA The Mighty Nein as Fear Avatars from The Magnus Archives.Inspired by/based on the fantastic art by @rabdoidal, which you can view here: https://rabdoidal.tumblr.com/post/189805183180/i-heard-you-dweebs-like-the-magnus-archives-and
Comments: 30
Kudos: 106





	1. The Archivist

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i heard you dweebs like the magnus archives and critical role](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/551386) by rabdoidal. 



Beau still wasn’t sure how she’d become Head Archivist of the Cobalt Institute. Sure, she’d spent some time with the previous Head Archivist Dairon, but that hardly qualified her for the position. Before this, she’d been a researcher. She’d liked that job--investigating the stories and artifacts that passed through the Institute and proving that they, like everything else to do with the supernatural, were complete bullshit.

Finding out the  _ why  _ behind apparent mysteries was what Beau was good at. Organizing said mysteries? Not so much.

Because yeah, the Archives were a mess. Beau had respected Dairon--her intolerance for bullshit, including Beau’s; their pragmatic approach to life; and, of course, her ability to kick ass. None of Dairon’s skills seemed to have lended themselves to actually making the Archives organized enough to be useful, though. Beau found herself wishing that Dairon had left behind some sort of notes on the Archives before she died--but that was stupid, of course. Why would someone include details on file organization in their will?

Still, this was Beau’s job now, and Beau--after years of slacking off and general delinquency--took her responsibilities seriously. Plus, a few of the statements that she glanced at among the mess looked actually interesting. Organizing the Archives would make it easier for her to investigate them on her own time, not to mention easier for the researchers upstairs.

Beau was never a fan of sitting still and reading. Audio was her preferred method of learning. So why not record audio versions of the statements as she went through them?

Some of them would have to be on tape recorder, though. For some reason she kept running into technical difficulties when she tried to record them on her laptop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is more like a prologue than anything else. The rest of the chapters are much longer and juicier, I promise. :)


	2. The Desolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Caleb Widogast, regarding... some advice. And a fire.

The first Avatar who gave Beau a statement was a man with hair the color of fire.

No, that wasn’t quite right. Fire was warm and alive. The man’s hair lacked all of that vibrancy, not looking... dead, per se, but more like fire that had had all the things that made it _fire_ sucked out of it. Or maybe it was just orange.

“Hello, Archivist,” he said.

“Why do you all keep calling me that?” Beau snapped. “ _Archivist._ Like it’s some sort of title.”

“Because that’s what you are,” he said, and then frowned.

“No, like, my job title is _Head_ Archivist. _You_ say it differently. Just ‘Archivist’ by itself, like I’m special or something. And you all keep saying I serve, like... The Eye, or something. Like you serve the Lightless Flame, right?”

“Yes. The Lightless Flame, the Desolation, the Blackened Earth...” The man scowled. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop _asking questions._ ”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like being forced to answer,” the man said through gritted teeth.

“What do you me--AAH!”

Beau broke off mid-sentence, jerking her hand away from the man. He had pressed one fingertip, exposed from the frayed ends of his gloves, against the back of her hand. The place where he had touched her shone livid and red like a cigarette burn.

“Try to compel me again, and I’ll burn it out of your mouth,” the man said. For the first time, Beau saw a spark of feeling in his eyes, something besides the quiet and self-effacing way he had spoken until now. He looked angry, and despite herself, Beau felt afraid.

“I’m just--” Beau said, and took a breath to try and focus through the pain. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“Of course you are,” the man said, now back to his quiet tone from before, but this time tinged with amusement. “You don’t even know what’s going on here, do you?”

“So _tell me!”_ Beau exclaimed.

Now the man smiled, like Beau had just told a joke that only the two of them were in on. “An avatar of the Beholding, begging for knowledge... You’re funny. All right, Archivist. I’ll tell you something, in exchange for fair payment.”

“What pay--” Beau started, then stopped herself. “What are you tell--” She stopped again. “Fine.”

“Aren’t you going to say your magic words?”

Beau sighed and angled the tape recorder toward the avatar. “Statement of Caleb Widogast, regarding...”

“Some advice,” Caleb said. “And a fire.”

“Statement recorded direct from subject by Beauregard Lionett, Head Archivist of the Cobalt Institute. Statement begins.”

Caleb told Beau a story of fires, ones that he had started himself just to see what would happen, and then, guided by an older mentor, ones that he had started in service of a greater power. He spoke of how each fire he lit seemed to stoke his own desire to burn, how it flooded him with power and hunger for more power, until he realized properly the devastation that it left behind. He told Beau of how when he had stopped starting fires, he himself had started to burn from the inside out, until he lit his parents’ home on fire with his own hands and burned it down with them inside.

“I broke,” Caleb said simply. “But the Lightless Flame put me back together. Or rather, it remolded me. It’s much easier to fix something that melts instead of breaks.”

Caleb had been staring off into the distance while he told his story, but now he looked Beau in the eyes. His eyes were the color of the blue at the center of a flame, heat so intense that it becomes cold. “It’s not just about fire. The Desolation requires complete and utter destruction of everything one holds dear. While my parents still lived, I had something. Now I have nothing. Nothing but the Flame.”

When it became clear that he had finished speaking, Beau let out a breath. “Statement ends. That was... Uh...” Horrifying. Depressing. Still, somehow, _obnoxiously_ cryptic. “What was the advice?”

“I thought I made it clear, Archivist. Feed your power, your god, or it will feed on you.” There was a beat of silence, and then Caleb sighed, as if disappointed. “I thought I told you not to compel me.”

“I didn’t--I don’t know--I’m sorry,” Beau settled on. She still didn’t know what she was apologizing for, but even she could tell that she was, well, playing with fire.

“It’s... all right. That is the first time I’ve ever told someone that story. It... wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

“Um... Okay?”

Sometime during his statement, Caleb had taken off his gloves. Now he offered a hand to Beau to shake. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Archivist.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Automatically, Beau reached out and clasped Caleb’s hand. In the instant before their fingers met, she thought, _He never asked for that paym--_

Later, when Beau went back and listened to the recording, she could hear Caleb counting while she screamed. He said the numbers slowly and precisely, as if reading them one at a time from a screen. “One... two... three...”

On “three,” Caleb released Beau’s hand. “Is that enough?” he asked.

Beau, her mind afire with the pain from her hand and fighting the urge to pass out, didn’t answer. Caleb didn’t say it like a torturer asking a victim if they’d given up, but like a customer asking a cashier if they could complete the payment, or a worker asking their boss if they were done for the day. He didn’t sound like he was talking to Beau. Beau didn’t want to think about who he _was_ talking to.

“I like you, so I gave you a discount,” Caleb said. This time Beau could tell he was talking to her. Even in the midst of her pain, her sharp eyes--something she had always been proud of, but now reminded her of her own so-called god--noticed the imprint of her hand against his palm, as if she had pressed into hot wax. Then Caleb pulled his gloves back on and it was gone.

“Goodbye, Archivist. Don’t come after me again.”


	3. The Vast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Fjord, regarding a tattoo.

Beau found the Avatar of the Vast at the docks. Well, on a boat, more precisely. She carefully made her way up the swaying gangplank to the deck of the boat, trying not to feel like she was breaking and entering. It wasn’t like there was a locked door keeping her out. “Uh--Fjord?”

The man coiling rope with his back to her turned and raised an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“Sorry, Ford?” Beau had only read his name in statements before now, so she had no idea how to pronounce it. “Is it Ford like the car, or Fjord like the--”

“Either is fine,” he interrupted politely. “You must be the Archivist. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh. Does that mean you want to kill me too?”

“What? Oh, no, no!” Fjord looked both shocked and appalled at the very idea. “Of course not. Not unless you give me a good reason to.”

“...Right.” This was not especially comforting to Beau, as the reasons previous entities had given for killing her was simply existing as the Archivist, whatever that meant. “Um, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”

“I do, actually.” Beau blinked, and Fjord smiled politely at her. “It’s a bit rude, you see. Just barging in and asking me questions. Especially on my own ship.”

“Oh. Um. Okay. What if we just... talked?”

Fjord studied her for a moment, his golden eyes intent and unfriendly in a way at odds with the rest of him. Then he smiled charmingly. “Of course. Here, come in. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

Beau followed Fjord into the small interior of the boat and sat awkwardly at the cramped table that he pointed to. She watched him busy himself at the tiny stove. He looked... normal. Normal except for the tattoo that curled up from underneath his collar and around his neck.

“So...” Beau said, drawing the word out. This was the first time an avatar had treated her so civilly upon meeting her, although she supposed Caleb hadn’t been too bad at first. Before the whole burning her hand thing. “You’re Fjord.”

“Yep.”

“You, uh, you’re associated with... the Vast?”

“That’s one name for it. And please, no questions.”

“Right, sorry. You... you feature in some of our statements. At the Cobalt Institute.”

“Do I?” Fjord still sounded politely interested, nothing more. Beau kept staring at his tattoo. It was a tentacle, she thought. Or was it a tail of some kind, and those round marks eyes?

“Yeah. There was a skydiving trip, and an exploration of a shipwreck...” Beau trailed off again.

Fjord didn’t look up, getting out two cups from a cabinet. “You’re sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

“No, I’m good. I...” Finally Beau couldn’t take it anymore. “How’d you get that tattoo?”

There was a _clink_ as Fjord set down the cups. He turned to face her with an expression of gentle disappointment, as if she was a star pupil who had failed to answer a question correctly. “And I was trying _so_ hard to be polite.”

Suddenly Beau was falling. She tried to scream but her breath choked her on its way out of her throat. There was nothing but blue sky above and blue ocean far below, and she was falling, falling, falling.

“Hard to ask questions at terminal velocity, isn’t it?” Fjord said, still in that mild, polite tone. Beau turned her streaming eyes towards him to see him plummeting beside her, limbs outstretched like a professional skydiver, his expression calm. She still somehow clutched the recorder in one hand. “The air doesn’t leave your lungs like you expect it to. I did tell you that you were being rude.”

Beau tried to respond, but the only sound she could make was a gasp. Fjord sighed, seemingly unaffected. “You wanted to know about my tattoo. Very well, I’ll indulge you.”

Fjord told her that he had been an ordinary sailor, plying his trade across the ocean, until a catastrophic shipwreck. He had loved the ocean, how it stretched out into infinity in all directions, how insignificant he felt on its surface. He loved it still as he sunk beneath its waves.

And then he felt something curl around his chest and neck, cutting off his throat and keeping the water from entering his lungs. It didn’t feel like a rope. It felt more like a tentacle. Or a tail.

Fjord was dragged down into the depths by his neck, so far down that he could no longer tell which way was up, until there was nothing but darkness in every direction. And then, against the darkness, he saw something move. Something so huge that he could feel his mind breaking trying to comprehend it.

So he embraced it.

“I’ve had this tattoo ever since,” Fjord continued conversationally. “I picked up diving after that, in both sky and sea. Sometimes I take people with me. Simply floating between the two doesn’t really do it for me anymore.”

He paused, as if waiting for Beau to say something. _Statement ends,_ maybe. She had given up on trying to speak, though, and just focused on holding onto the tape recorder in a white-knuckled grip. The ocean below her seemed to be getting closer.

“Hm. That was... pretty nice, actually. I honestly enjoyed that. Didn’t really think I would.”

The ocean was rapidly approaching, now. Beau had read somewhere that hitting the water from ten stories up was like hitting concrete. She didn’t like to contemplate how it would feel hitting the water from a distance that was much, much higher.

“Alrighty, then.”

Abruptly Beau was no longer falling. She gasped, sucking in air to fuel her oxygen-starved lungs. She was on her hands and knees on the floor of Fjord’s ship’s cabin, one hand still clutched around the recorder. For a moment she was comforted by the feeling of solid ground beneath her, until the ship rocked gently with the waves and she he had to force down a wave of nausea.

“I would work on my manners if I were you,” Fjord said helpfully. Beau pulled herself to her feet with one hand on the table she had been sitting at, still struggling to breathe. The avatar sat at the table, hands cupped around a mug of tea, observing her with polite interest. “There aren’t many others who would respond to such rudeness as kindly as me.”

“I...” Beau managed, panting. “You... Fuck...”

“Careful,” Fjord said. His voice had abruptly become low and threatening, all trace of charm gone. “I could still put you back up there. Or maybe you’d like a trip to the deepest parts of the ocean?”

Beau shook her head emphatically.

“Off you go, then. If you come calling again, I do hope you’re more polite.”

Beau made her way back down the swaying gangplank slowly. There weren’t any handrails, and she didn’t like to think of what would grab her if she fell off and into the sea.


	4. The Buried

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Nott regarding her, uh, murder.

Beau probably should have brought a statement with her. She hadn’t thought that she would be gone that long, just checking into a statement a day’s drive away, but it had been much harder to track down the location that the original statement giver had spoken of than she’d thought. She probably should have had an assistant do this for her, but she was going stir crazy cooped up in the Archives all day, Archivist or not.

But Beau was the Archivist, apparently, and that meant an annoying and disturbing dependency on recording statements. Feed her god or have it feed on her, huh?

Which is how she found herself crouched at the edge of the river where the statement giver had supposedly had her near-death experience, trying not to throw up. Statement withdrawal felt a lot like having the flu, except for how it got worse exponentially faster and how it influenced... well... her ability to _see_ clearly.

So when Beau’s reflection in the water seemed to ripple and shift into a face with green skin and yellow eyes, she didn’t really think much of it. That is, until a loud voice said, “If you puke on me, I’m going to fill your lungs with dirt.”

Beau yelped and fell backwards, scrambling away from the river’s edge. What looked like a woman peered out at her over the water’s surface: green skin, yellow eyes, and long dark hair trailing in the water. She met Beau’s eyes and grinned, showing a mouthful of sharp teeth.

“You don’t look so good,” the woman in the water said teasingly, her voice as high-pitched and scratchy as a barbed-wire fence. “Wanna hop in? I hear mud baths can do wonders for your health.”

“It--It’s you,” Beau said. She pushed herself into a more upright seated position. “The creature from Mary-Elizabeth’s statement.”

“Who you calling creature?” the woman said sharply. “Was Mary-Elizabeth the blonde who punched me in the face and then ran off screaming? I don’t like her.”

“Er,” Beau said. That did in fact sound like the statement that Beau was investigating, but she didn’t think it was smart to bring it up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. My name is Beauregard. I’m the Head Archivist of the Cobalt Institute.”

“Oh, the Archivist!” Yellow eyes regarded her shrewdly over the water. “You aren’t what I expected.”

“You were expecting Dairon.”

“Who? No, I just thought you’d look more... nerdy. You look like a jock!”

Beau honestly wasn’t sure what to do with that. “You’re, uh, you’re a lot more chatty than the other avatars I’ve met.”

“Avatar, huh? I like the sound of that.” The woman seemed to swim around lazily in a circle, although Beau couldn’t actually tell if that was what she was doing, since everything below her neck was hidden in the water. “Well, you know. I don’t get a lot of visitors. And those I do get are usually too busy drowning to talk.”

“So. You drown people.”

“People drown. Everyone knows the river is dangerous to swim in. But they swim anyway. And then they drown. It’s a terrible way to go.”

Beau frowned. “But you’re an avatar of the Drowned. The Buried. Whatever.”

“You think I _chose_ this?” the woman snarled, suddenly furious. “I didn’t! Not... entirely. I was _murdered._ ”

“You were murdered?” Beau’s feelings of statement-sickness were coming back, making it hard for her to focus on not asking questions. “You want to, uh... You could tell me how you ended up like this, then, if you want.”

The woman’s head came a little closer to the bank where Beau sat. “I’ve never told anyone what happened.” She didn’t sound suspicious or angry like the others Beau had spoken to. More curious.

“People usually feel better after they tell me,” Beau said. “If that helps.”

The woman was silent for a moment. Beau focused on breathing through her nose and fighting down the returning feelings of nausea. “Okay,” the woman said at last.

Beau sighed in relief and shuffled over closer to the river’s edge, although she was still careful to stay out of arm’s reach. She took her recorder out of her coat pocket and held it out towards the water. “Statement of...”

“I was Veth Brenatto,” said the avatar. Her voice had become quiet and uncertain, a far cry from the brash way she had spoken earlier. “But now I’m... Nott.”

“Statement of Nott, regarding her, uh, murder. Statement recorded direct from subject by Beauregard Lionett, Head Archivist of the Cobalt Institute. Statement begins.”

Veth had been an ordinary woman who lived in the town nearby. She had spent her whole life there, and like all the other locals, knew of the dangers of the nearby river. It was known for its depth, as sudden and deceptive as any lake or ocean, but with fast-moving currents to keep you from getting back to shore.

A few visitors drowned in the river each year. The locals agreed it was their own fault for not heeding the clearly posted warning signs. Still, that didn’t keep people from visiting, camping, and swimming. Like the campers who had killed Veth.

No one paid them any heed at first. But they stayed longer than any other campers had stayed before, pitching their tents close to the edge of the deepest part of the river and swimming there fearlessly. They never drowned. But other things started to.

First it was local wildlife washing up on the shores downriver. Then pets. Then a child. The official story was that he had wandered off from his parents and fallen in. But Veth had been gathering wildflowers by the river’s edge, and she had seen the campers taking in the lost child, talking to him softly, and then throwing him into the river.

She only told her husband. Who else would believe her? But the campers must have found out somehow, because one night during the spring rains, when the river was at its highest, they took her and held her underwater until she drowned.

“I guess they were followers of the Buried. Cultists,” Nott said. “Because they drowned me as part of some sort of ritual. But I didn’t want to die. So I didn’t.”

Beau’s mouth felt dry. The ritual Nott described sounded like the kinds she had read about, that other followers of other powers had attempted to bring about the end of the world. The end of _this_ world, at least. “What happened next?”

“I killed them,” Nott said flatly. “I buried them alive in the dirt, right over there. It seemed appropriate. And it made me feel better.”

“That’s it?”

“Then I looked in the water and saw that I looked like this.” Nott looked down at her reflection in the water, as if reliving the moment. “Like some sort of river-goblin. So I stayed.”

Beau shook her head. She couldn’t figure out what had stopped the Buried followers’ ritual from working without asking Nott more questions, and now she felt clear-headed enough to know not to push her luck. “Okay, uh... Statement ends. Do you... feel any better?”

Nott considered for a moment. “No.”

“Maybe you’ll feel better later,” Beau said half-heartedly. “So, you’re stuck here. Have you tried... You can’t get up and, like, walk around.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nott said sarcastically. “Because someone whose entire existence is tied to being underwater can absolutely get up and walk around, on the ground, in open air. Why haven’t I tried that before?”

“Jeez, I’m sorry,” Beau muttered. “Just trying to understand.”

“Although...” Nott mused. “Now that I think about it, if I go deep enough into the crushing pressure here, I might be able to find my way to the crushing pressure in other places. That’s actually not a bad idea.”

“Great,” Beau said. She had the sinking feeling that she had just handed a previously contained entity of fear a method of escaping to, and thereby killing in, innumerable other places. “Happy to help.”

Beau stood with a groan from where she’d been crouched while recording the statement. But either the awkward position or her earlier illness had made her legs stiff and aching, because as she rose she briefly lost her balance and toppled toward the water.

Fast as lighting, a green hand shot out from the water and seized Beau’s coat sleeve at the wrist. It tugged downwards with unnatural force, and Beau was barely able to yank her arm back through the sleeve and pull off the coat completely before it sank under the water. Beau took several steps back from the water’s edge, panting.

Nott’s head had vanished beneath the surface with the coat, but now it emerged, grinning her sharp-toothed smile at Beau once again. “Nice reflexes, Archivist! And great taste in buttons!” One green hand popped up from the water, cradling the shiny gold buttons that had fastened the front of what Beau had privately thought of as her pirate coat. “I’ll consider that to be fair payment for my story.”

“You’re welcome,” Beau snarled, but Nott had already sunk back beneath the water.

Beau started to shiver. The sun was going down and it was a long walk back to her car. At least she still had the tape recorder.


	5. The Spiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of the entity known as Jester, regarding a series of encounters with Jester Lavorre earlier in her life.

Beau slammed the door behind her and leaned back against it, panting. As soon as the door closed, the sounds of chaos and violence from just outside disappeared, leaving only the silence of the long and twisting corridors of the Distortion. Until that silence was broken by the sound of echoing laughter.

“That was amazing!” Jester exclaimed. “You were really impressive out there, Archivist. Punching all those mannequins left and right! It’s too bad the servants of the Stranger don’t really feel pain, because for a second I thought you might actually fight them off!”

Beau glanced up at Jester’s face and immediately glanced away. Seeing the too-wide and twisted smile made her stomach clench, not to mention the dizzy and nauseous feeling she got from looking in her--its--swirling eyes. “I thought I would too,” Beau muttered.

“But I’m glad I was there to help,” Jester continued cheerfully. “You would’ve died without me, or at least been kidnapped again, probably!”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Beau said. She wiped a trickle of blood away from her nose and stood. As soon as she took her weight off the door, it vanished, leaving her and Jester standing in a mirrored hallway that stretched off to infinity in both directions. “And thanks for the rescue,” Beau added begrudgingly. “Now _why_ are you helping me?”

If Jester felt the compulsion in the question, she didn’t react, just smiled wider--impossibly wide, in a way that made Beau’s head hurt. “I told you, Archivist! Because we’re _friends!_ ”

“We are not _friends,”_ Beau snapped. “ _Jester_ was my friend, and you’re not--You wanted to kill me! Or at least the Traveler did, who _is_ you.”

“Jester, Traveler... names are hard.” The Distortion shrugged. “The Traveler didn’t know you like Jester knew you. He thought it would be, I don’t know, _fun_ to kill you. But Jester liked you. So I like you too, I guess!”

“That’s not--” Beau bit off the rest of her sentence and rubbed a hand down her face in frustration. “Fine. Whatever. Just show me the way out.”

Jester, or the thing that looked like Jester, or the thing that Jester had become, pouted. “Whaaat? Are you leaving already?”

“Fuck yes,” Beau growled. “Where’s the door?”

“There isn’t one,” Jester said. “At least not right now. I Do Not Know You is still making a big old mess of your Archives. You need to wait until it’s safe to leave.”

“So I’m trapped here.”

“Just for a little while! Until it’s safe,” Jester protested. “I mean, I bet if you really wanted, you could find the way out.” She waggled her too-long and too-sharp fingers at Beau, mouth in what was probably supposed to be a teasing grin. “Since you’re the Archivist and all.”

Beau thought she probably could too, with some effort. But she was still injured and exhausted from the fight with the Stranger’s mannequins, despite her--ugh--supernatural healing. She could feel a pounding ache in her head from simply _being_ in the Distortion, let alone trying to navigate it. “Fine,” Beau said. “I guess I’ll stay. For a little while.”

Jester clapped her hands together, beaming. “Yay, roommates!”

Beau groaned.

“So, Archivist,” Jester said. “I hear you’ve been taking statements from some of the others.”

Beau glanced at her, wary. “Yeah? So what if I have?”

“I don’t know, I’m feeling a little left out, I guess. You haven’t asked me for _my_ story.”

Beau looked away, but there was nothing to look at, just endless distorted reflections of her and Jester. “That’s because I already _know_ your story. Jester’s story, I mean. I know how you-- _she_ ended up like... this.”

Jester hummed doubtfully, sounding so exactly like she did when she was mortal that Beau had to close her eyes for a second. “Technically _,_ that’s not entirely true, technically. That wasn’t the first time Jester walked my corridors, you know. I had marked her waaaaaay before that.”

At that, Beau looked at Jester fully, not sure if the swooping feeling in her stomach was from what the Distortion had said or from trying to focus on her--its--face, which was difficult enough to comprehend outside of its hallways. “You did _what?”_

Jester laughed again, the high, echoing sound that always made Beau’s skin crawl and her head hurt. “Oh, you’re not getting it out of me that easy! If I’m going to give you a statement, I expect the full treatment.”

Beau growled and pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. She wanted to tell the avatar of the Spiral to fuck off. She didn’t need to hear about how Jester had been doomed from the start, that she had never had any hope of escaping the fate that had befallen her. She certainly didn’t want to hear it from a warped and twisted version of Jester herself.

But as soon as the Distortion had teased Beau with the possibility of there being more to the story, she had felt it--what had two years ago been her own natural curiosity, but was now an unquenchable desire, no, a _need_ to know. She would feel better after the statement, she knew. Better enough to find her own way out without the Distortion’s help, maybe.

“Or,” Jester half-sang, “I can leave you here alone until the Stranger is gone. Up to you!”

“Dammit,” Beau muttered. She reached into the pocket of her hoodie. She hadn’t put a tape recorder there earlier, but there was one present anyway, as she expected. And already recording. Which meant that the Beholding was all but telling her to take this statement.

“Statement of the entity....” Beau swallowed past the sour taste in her mouth. “...Known as Jester. Regarding an encounter with Jester Lavorre earlier in her life. Statement recorded direct from subject by Beauregard Lionett, the Archivist. Statement begins.”

“I actually met her more than once,” Jester said. “Although I guess I was still the Traveler back then? Wow, identity is _so_ confusing.”

Jester had grown up a lonely child, largely unable to leave her own house. So when she found a door she didn’t recognize at the end of an otherwise familiar hallway, while surprised, she wasn’t afraid; merely curious, and perhaps a bit too desperate for something new. So she opened it and walked through.

The twisted and nonsensical corridors might have confused or driven insane anyone else. But Jester had spent years living in her own world--too bored by the real one--and was not really expecting these strange halls to make sense. When Jester found the door back to her home, several days had passed. Her mother, out of her mind with worry, declared that she would never let Jester out of the house again.

That was okay, though. Because the door came back, and with it, a man dressed in green. Jester could never get a good look at his face, and his fingers were long and sharp. But he was friendly, and funny, and whenever Jester made a joke he would laugh in his high, echoing voice. He would also frequently invite Jester back to his home, through the door he had come through, to play.

Jester called him the Traveler, because that was what he did. And while Jester was very lonely--lonely enough to call the Traveler her best friend, and to tell her mother about him, who thought her daughter’s imaginary friend quite cute--she knew better than to follow the Traveler back through that door. She wasn’t sure if she could find her way out a second time.

The Traveler’s visits came less and less frequently as she grew older, even as Jester’s urge to leave her home grew stronger. His invitations to play became invitations to escape. When Jester’s mother finally relented and let her daughter leave the nest, she never knew how close Jester had been to accepting her best friend’s offer.

Jester hadn’t seen the Traveler again until she started working for the Archives. And then--well. She had been right, after all, about going through that door a second time.

“Statement ends,” Beau muttered, fingers clenched around the recorder. Jester--the Distortion--was grinning at her infuriatingly, as if Jester getting trapped and, and, _consumed_ by the thing she had called her friend was anything to laugh at. “I guess that explains a lot. Anyway. You happy now?”

“Always!” said Jester. “What about you, Archivist? Are you happy? _Satisfied?”_

Beau resisted the urge to throw the recorder at Jester’s head. She _was_ satisfied; not just in the sense that she finally understood Jester’s behavior when she was an assistant at the Archives, but as though she had just eaten a filling protein bar. Her wounds were healed. And she knew where she could find a door out of the Distortion, if she wanted it.

“You don’t need to do that,” Jester said, pouting again. “I’m always happy to provide a way out for a friend. And the Stranger’s people--well, not-people--are gone anyway.”

“Right,” Beau said, unable and unwilling to hold back the sarcasm. “Like you gave your friend Jester a way out.”

A door was on the wall between Jester and Beau, as if it had always been there. It creaked open without being touched, revealing the familiar sight of the Head Archivist’s office.

“Oh, that’s different,” Jester said, her smile ever-widening. “Jester didn’t really _want_ to leave. Just like you never really wanted to leave the Archives. Isn’t that right, Archivist?”

Even after the door had vanished and left Beau alone in her office, she thought she could still hear Jester’s echoing laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was also inspired by [@caryatherton's The Critical Archives AU](https://caryatherton.tumblr.com/tagged/the-critical-archives) on Tumblr, specifically the idea of Jester being a former Archival Assistant.
> 
> Come chat with me on [Tumblr](https://bobbiesquares.tumblr.com/ask)!


	6. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Caduceus Clay, regarding visions of his own death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's finally all caught up on TMA! It kind of shows in a few lines in this chapter, but I promise that despite the chapter title this isn't the end of this fic yet. Still one more chapter to go. :)

Beau found the avatar of the End in a cemetery, which was so stereotypical that Beau hadn’t actually been expecting it. What was truly a surprise was the cemetery was also a garden, meticulously tended and overflowing with plants and flowers that she didn’t recognize (although she was sure she would, if she thought about them for more than a few seconds). And a large garden at that--it had taken her quite a bit of detective work to find this place, as off-the-grid and isolated as it was.

Beau carefully picked her way among the winding path through the overgrowth until she arrived at a cottage. At her knock, the door swung open. A tall pink-haired man peered down at her and smiled. “Oh, hello, Miss Beau. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Er,” said Beau. “Hi, Caduceus.”

“Please, come in,” said Caduceus, and stood aside as Beau awkwardly squeezed her way through the doorway. For a house that belonged to someone so tall, it seemed awfully small inside. “Would you like some tea?”

“Uh,” Beau said, flashing back to a boat, a tattoo, and a terrifying fall. “What will you do to me if I say no?”

“Offer you something else to drink,” Caduceus said without hesitation. “I understand tea isn’t to everyone’s taste. But for what it’s worth, I grow my own. I’m quite proud of it.”

“...Sure,” Beau said. Maybe it was all her near-death (and actual-death) experiences over the last few years, or maybe it was some otherworldly intuition, or maybe it was just her own reckless disregard for her own life; but she wasn’t really worried about Caduceus killing her. After all, death came for everyone at some point. Why would he rush?

Beau sat awkwardly fidgeting at the table until Caduceus sat down, placing a pot and two cups on the table. “I’d give it a minute or two to cool,” he said pleasantly. “But it should be ready to drink soon.”

Now that Caduceus was more-or-less eye-level, Beau could see dark lines, like veins, creeping up his face towards his eyes. The same thin veins lined his pale hands, which were wrapped around one of the cups of tea.

“Your, uh,” Beau said, and gestured vaguely. Caduceus regarded her blankly. “Your face, and your, uh hands...”

Caduceus looked down at his hands and blinked. “Oh, you can see them! I guess that’s not much of a surprise, though, with you. Yes. What about them?”

“What, uh...” Beau paused. This was a bit too much déjà vu even for her, Fjord’s warning ringing in her mind, so she changed her question. “Are you... okay?”

“That’s an interesting question. Are  _ you  _ okay?” Caduceus said.

Beau opened her mouth to answer, hesitated, and then closed it. Caduceus smiled. “Exactly.”

Beau wasn’t quite sure what to say next, so she took a sip from her own cup. “Good tea,” she said, startled.

“Thank you,” Caduceus said, sounding genuinely pleased. “Yeah, I always thought the Perkinses made a particularly nice batch.”

“The what?”

“The Perkinses,” Caduceus said. “Buried right over there. Kurt Perkins was interred just two years ago. He’s the most recent addition.”

Beau followed Caduceus’s gesture through the window to a patch of bright pink blooming flowers, which she could now see were clustered around a few gravestones, although she couldn’t make out the names. She also  _ knew,  _ viscerally and immediately, how Kurt Perkins had died. It had not been pleasant.

“So,” Caduceus said, after a few moments of silence in which Beau mentally relived Kurt’s last moments and tried not to throw up the tea she'd just drunk. “What can I do for you, Archivist?”

“I...” Beau set down her teacup. “I wanted to say thank you, I guess.”

“What for?”

“For your... help? You saved my life, apparently.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Caduceus said. “More like... it wasn’t the right time for you to die. Yet.”

“Right. Well. Thanks, anyway.”

A few more seconds passed, and then Caduceus set down his own cup. “Forgive me for saying so,” he said mildly, “but I find it hard to believe that you would go to all the trouble of tracking me down and coming to my home just to say thank you. Why are you really here?”

Beau sighed and rubbed a knuckle into her eye. “No, you’re right, I’m sorry. I just... I’m curious, I guess. About why you helped me. About... you.”

“Ah,” Caduceus said. “You want my statement.”

Beau opened her mouth to deny it, then caught Caduceus’ even stare. “...Yes. I do.”

“Hm. You know, all you had to do was ask.”

Beau tried to smile. “I’ve been trying not to, these days. It tends to piss people off.”

“Yes, I suppose it would,” Caduceus said thoughtfully. “Well, I’m happy to tell you my story. It might help you in the days to come.”

Beau huffed out a not-quite laugh. “That’s ominous.”

“Yes, it is,” Caduceus agreed. “Are you ready?”

Beau glanced down. There was a tape recorder by her hand, already running. “Statement of Caduceus Clay, regarding...”

“Visions of my own death,” Caduceus said casually. “And everyone else’s.”

“Statement recorded direct from subject by Beauregard Lionett, the Archivist. Statement begins.”

Caduceus told Beau a story of growing up surrounded by death, so all-encompassing and pervasive that he was never really afraid of it. Not in a supernatural way, not then. But then he started dreaming of the vines. Black vines that crept over the ground and through windows and into people. People that later ended up in his family’s mortuary.

It was only a matter of time before Caduceus started seeing the vines in his waking life, too. And not long after that he started seeing them creeping towards his family, wrapping themselves around their ankles, threading tendrils over their skin, until they were covered in black, grasping vines that choked out all light.

He knew what that meant. And he tried to stop it. It was only after the news started trickling in, one after the other, that he realized that his efforts to prevent his family’s end had been what brought it about. So when Caduceus started to see the black vines coming for him, crawling up out of the ground as if to root him in place, twining their way around his fingers and reaching for his brain, he accepted his fate.

Caduceus Clay died of a stroke alone in his family’s empty home. And then he woke up.

“Anyway, I moved out here after that,” Caduceus continued in the same mild, even tone that he’d had for the entire statement. “There’s less people out here, so the vines are less distracting. And there didn’t seem much point to holding onto the family business with the whole family dead. But I have my own work. And I like to think I do it well.

“These won’t go away, though,” Caduceus said, showing Beau his hands. “I think of it as a reminder that we’re all marked by death, one way or another.”

“Statement ends,” Beau said. “That’s very, uh, philosophical of you. The whole marked by death thing.”

“Is it?” Caduceus said curiously. “I meant it quite literally. After all, you’re visibly marked by a number of Fears, not just the End.”

Beau self-consciously rubbed a hand over one of her scars. “Yeah, I guess I am. Well... thank you. For your story. And the tea.”

“You’re quite welcome, Beau. I would say come back any time, but...” Caduceus tilted his head, looking at Beau as if he wasn’t seeing her, but something else. “...I do find your presence to be a bit... distracting.”

Beau looked around herself, even though she knew she wouldn’t see anything. “What?” she said, not quite able to muster up the anxiety she thought she probably should feel. “Do I have a bunch of those vines around me? Am I gonna die soon?”

Caduceus let out a genuine, surprised laugh. “I’m not going to tell you that, Miss Beau! No, you’re going to have to discover your destiny on your own, just like everyone else.”

Beau snorted. “Destiny. Right. You know, even with everything I’ve learned, I still have a hard time believing in that.”

Caduceus leaned forward, still smiling, but with a new intensity behind his friendly demeanor. “I wouldn’t be so sure, Archivist. It’s like I said. Fate has a way of finding us all. Whether we expect it or not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points for anyone who can accurately guess how Kurt Perkins died ;)
> 
> Come chat with me on [Tumblr](https://bobbiesquares.tumblr.com/ask)!


	7. The Lonely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Yasha regarding the loss of her wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for your patience with this chapter!
> 
> I thought a lot about Beau's offer to Isharnai while writing this. If you want to be extra sad, feel free to do the same. :)

Beau did not find the avatar of the Lonely on the beach. Not that she tried to; she knew better than to look for someone who belonged to the Forsaken. No, as it so often did with so many others, the Lonely found her.

Beau sat on a grey and stony beach staring out at a gray and stormy sea. The repetitive sight and sound of the ocean was failing to calm her mind like it normally did. All Beau could think about was all the people who had died, or worse, because of her. Maybe she really was a monster. Maybe it would be better for everyone if she just... left.

“Mind if I join you?”

Beau jumped and looked up to see a tall woman gazing out at the ocean beside her. Beau hadn’t heard the woman come up beside her, which was impressive considering her size. But not too surprising given who she was.

“You’re Yasha,” Beau said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. I am.” Yasha paused, as if struggling to figure out what to say next. “You’re, uh, Beau. The Archivist.”

“That’s me,” Beau muttered gloomily. She plucked a rock from the beach and tossed it into the ocean. Most of the statements that featured Yasha included some note on how abruptly alone they felt when suddenly faced with her size and intimidating appearance, how aware they were that they had no help and no backup. But Beau didn’t feel scared. Just... empty.

Yasha sat down awkwardly beside Beau. Beau glanced at her, but Yasha didn’t say anything, just stared out to sea.

Eventually Beau sighed. “Why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” Yasha said, after a pause. “You just seemed... well...”

“Lonely?” Beau said scathingly. “So you decided to, what, give me some company? Or are you going to throw me into the Lonely dimension or whatever it’s called, make me disappear forever? Because if that’s the case, just get on with it already.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Yasha said softly. “I just... Yes. I thought you needed some company.”

“Bullshit,” Beau said, and threw another rock from the beach into the ocean. It skipped once, twice, three times, then sunk beneath the waves. Beau didn’t feel proud.

“It isn’t,” Yasha insisted. “I... like you, Beau. I’ve seen you a lot, from afar. You’re so full of life, always throwing yourself into new experiences. Despite myself, I... admire that.”

Beau scoffed. Quietly, Yasha said, “You remind me of my wife, in a lot of ways.”

At that, Beau turned to look at Yasha, too surprised to hide her reaction. “Wait, you’re married?”

“I was,” Yasha said softly. “A long time ago. Before all this.”

“What happened?”

Yasha continued to gaze out at the ocean, her expression distant. “She, uh, died. She...”

Yasha’s mouth opened and closed several times before she gave up. “I’m sorry. I’m, uh, not really used to talking to people. I don’t know if I...” She trailed off again.

“Do you... want to tell me?” Beau asked cautiously.

Yasha stared at the sea for a moment and sighed. “Yes. I think I do.”

“Would it help if I...  _ asked?” _

After a pause, Yasha nodded mutely. “You can keep recording, if you like,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

Beau hadn’t even noticed the tape recorder between them on the stony beach, or that it was already running. “Right,” she muttered. “Statement of Yasha, regarding... um... the loss of her wife. Statement recorded direct from subject by Beauregard Lionett, the Archivist. Statement begins.”

Beau took a deep breath and then deliberately let the words fall off her tongue, humming, heavy,  _ compelling.  _ “Tell me what happened.”

Yasha had been in a gang. She said it simply, no judgement one way or the other: she had been in a gang, and they had been everything to her. They were her family. And then she fell in love. And everything went wrong.

After Zuala died, Yasha went on the run. She knew the gang would kill her if they ever found her, so she left the city and traveled far, far away. She ended up deep in the forest, where no one would ever find her.

Yasha didn’t remember clearly what happened next. Only that she was alone for a very, very long time.

The next thing Yasha remembered was hearing someone calling for help. Yasha followed the voice to find a girl dressed like a hiker, not much younger than her, stumbling through the woods. She was lost, and calling for someone, anyone, to help her.

Yasha knew that revealing herself, all dirty and ragged from living in the woods, would scare the girl more than help her. But she couldn’t help but feel a deep empathy for this girl, as lost and alone as Yasha felt. So she followed the girl as she continued to wander, her cries growing ever more desperate and more faint as the sun went down and the fog crept in.

And then, between one cry and the next, she was gone. Not dead. Gone. And Yasha suddenly felt better.

“That was when I knew what I had become,” Yasha mumbled, staring at her hands. “I... I’m not who Zuala married. I haven’t been in a long time. I think maybe... she would hate me now. I don’t know.” Yasha let out a sigh, not of frustration, but of sadness.

“Statement ends,” Beau murmured. “I... I’m sorry, Yasha.” She tentatively reached out to rest her hand on Yasha’s, but stopped an inch away. That close, Yasha’s hand seemed almost to fade into the ground beneath it, like it wasn’t even there.

“I am, too,” Yasha said, so quietly Beau almost didn’t hear her. “I’m a monster, Beau. And I don’t want you to end up like me.”

That startled a bitter laugh out of Beau. “Too late for that, I think.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Yasha whispered. “Not yet, anyway.” She raised her head to look out at the sea once more. “Fog’s rolling in.”

Beau followed her gaze. The distant horizon between sea and sky was now invisible under a cloud of gray. “Oh, yeah, so it is.”

When Beau looked back, Yasha was gone, leaving nothing but a cold wind blowing in her place. Her abrupt absence made Beau feel even more alone than before.  _ Of course it does,  _ she thought bitterly. But that didn’t stop the tears from springing to her eyes.

On the beach with only a tape recorder for company, bereft of the company of even other monsters, Beau had never felt more alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading The Cobalt Archives! Please leave a comment or kudos to let me know that you've read it, it means a lot! And of course, an enormous thank you to all my lovely readers who have already left kudos and comments. I'm not exaggerating when I say you guys are the reason I finished this fic--your comments and kudos kept me going! <3
> 
> This fic might be over, but you are always welcome to come [chat with me on Tumblr](https://bobbiesquares.tumblr.com/ask). Thanks again!


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